Smile, Hobson Has The Answers

April 14, 1992|By ALAN GREENBERG; Courant Sports Columnist

BOSTON — On the morning of his first managerial Opening Day at Fenway, Butch Hobson, the Red Sox manager who talks like a football coach, awoke feeling "pumped up. I had my game face on [Monday] morning. My wife told me to leave. "

His brother-in-law drove him to the ballpark from his home in suburban Natick.

"But he got off on the wrong road," Hobson said. "I was supposed to be here at 8. We got here at 9."

Hobson's Red Sox had gotten off on the wrong road, too, falling behind the usually punchless Orioles 5-0, then rallying for a 6-6, seventh-inning tie, only to lose, 8-6.

It was a 3-hour, 37-minute muddle that began with Frank Viola getting bombed -- six runs (five earned) and eight hits in three-plus innings -- in his Fenway debut in a Red Sox uniform. It ended with Tim Naehring, Saturday's hero, grounding out to Cal Ripken before stands that had been half-empty since the seventh inning. It was 43 degrees at game time, with winds gusting from 17 to 27 mph. Fans wore sweaters, jackets, gloves and wool hats. It was a very nice day -- for football.

"I know I never enjoyed playing when it was cold," Hobson said.

He couldn't have enjoyed this much, either. It was 5:30 p.m., long past the time Hobson could do anything but score public relations points by answering the seemingly endless questions of the media. The Red Sox season is only a week old, and already there have been back-to-back blown leads -- and one-run losses -- at Yankee Stadium, a 6 1/2 -hour 19-inning victory over the Indians, followed by a doubleheader in which Matt Young pitched an eight inning, complete game without giving up a hit, and lost, only to have Roger Clemens ride to the rescue with a two-hit shutout in the second game.

Then home to this -- giving up eight runs in one game to a team that had scored only 10 in its previous five.

"The first six have been tough ones," Hobson said. "But what the first six have done is they're going to make us tough, make us a better ballclub."

They will have to be better if they're going to stay close to

the Blue Jays, who were undefeated and leading the Red Sox by four games entering Monday night's games. It's a long season, but Red Sox fans don't want to consider what a red-hot Blue Jays pitching staff could do to anemic (.235) Red Sox hitting when Toronto arrives Friday for a four-game series. Being eight games back in April isn't a good way to start a pennant race.

"I'm happy we're home, to be with our families," Hobson said. "That's the biggest lift you could have, to be home with your wives and children. We've got a few good family people on this club, and we've got good togetherness on this club. That's going to take us a long way."

Viola, the former Met who signed a three-year, $13.9 million contract with the Red Sox in the off-season, didn't take them a long way Monday. He was pitching on three days' rest, and he couldn't put the ball where he wanted.

"I appreciate you coming back on three days," Hobson said he told Viola after removing him. "That's the kind of competitor you are."

The kind of competitor he hopes they all are. The game had been over for 45 minutes, but Hobson was sitting at his desk in full uniform, as if at any minute, his University of Alabama football coach, Bear Bryant, might rise from the dead and tell Hobson to get out there and run punishment laps. Blue eyes and perfectly-coiffed, iron-gray hair shone beneath his cap.

Joe Morgan used to sit at this desk looking rumpled, as a 60-year-old man managing a bunch of pampered 30-year-old millionaires is entitled to. On his first day in the swivel chair, Hobson, 40, sat up straight, made lots of eye contact and said "sir" when answering questions. When he hesitated several seconds before answering one inquiry, he looked at his questioner and said, "I'm not putting you off, I'm just trying to think."

Whoa. Give this man a merit badge.

Of course, nobody will. You don't win merit badges with a .333 winning percentage. Hobson knows that. Weicker and Weld don't get second-guessed in a year as much as Hobson will in a week. Hobson knows that, too. And he's prepared to deal with it. That's the job.

"A lot of what I've done over the six games hasn't worked," he said. "And I'm prepared to take the blame for it."

Monday, that included having reliever Danny Darwin pitch to Randy Milligan in the eighth inning with Brady Anderson on third, two out and first base open in a 6-6 game. Mike Devereaux was on deck.

"Devereaux's hitting .364 with two home runs and Milligan got his first hit [Sunday]," Hobson said. "If I walk Milligan and Devereaux hits it, I'm down two runs."

Instead, Milligan (who batted .356 against the Red Sox last season) hit it -- a run-scoring double -- and the Orioles added an insurance run in the ninth. And manager Hobson was 0-1 at Fenway.

From the number of questions he answered from the dozens of TV crews, radio guys and newspaper reporters, you'd have thought he was 0-10.

Today is an off day. But would it be a day off for Hobson? Would he let his new job consume him 24 hours a day? "No," he said. "I'm going to come here and work out, do a few things for some people, then take my wife and my baby out to eat. My wife, she's Italian and she don't cook. How about that?"